It is conventional to construct a building by first constructing a self-supporting framework or body of vertical construction elements, such as columns and/or walls, horizontal beams supported by the vertical construction elements, and horizontal floor levels supported by the beams, and then constructing rooms within the framework. The framework may be made predominantly of concrete, particularly steel-reinforced concrete. The framework may alternatively be a steel/concrete framework, composed of steel columns and beams and concrete floor levels.
Using modern building techniques, the framework of a building can be built relatively rapidly, mostly by using prefabricated supporting building elements. In contrast, construction of the rooms within the framework involves a large amount of manual labor and is therefore expensive and time consuming. Further, it is difficult to organize construction of the interior of a building at the building site because workers of different trades have different tasks to perform and the proper timing of these tasks demands accurate planning and keeping of time schedules.
A conventional building comprising a self-supporting framework and rooms constructed within the framework may suffer from considerable sound insulation problems. Noise is easily transmitted through the framework from one room to another as so called frame sound, and this takes place horizontally from one room to another on the same floor as well as vertically from one room to another on different floors. The sound insulation qualities of the building can be improved by using expensive special measures, for instance by building so called floating floors, or by making the walls and the floor levels thicker than required by the load stresses. Otherwise, it is necessary simply to tolerate the poor sound insulation.